Dean Baquet

School Shooting List (Fabrications of a Political Mind)

Published by Papa Giorgio

A list is making its rounds showing a crapload of “school shootings” — I will post the list at the end because it is long. But this is the most recent list shared primarily on Facebook. The version I saw was by Greg Atkinson:

It is a list of 245 school shootings. This is nothing new, per-se, at every similar event some list is trotted out to use a real event to make untrue statements about others. Why? To elicit an emotional response. This was confirmed to me as I went through the comments under the list; one person was even calling for a teacher strike.

Lol.

I thought to myself at the time of reading it (but did not respond),

  • “Yes, please strike… it will chase EVEN MORE parents to choose private and home schooling even more than the last 2-years of masking and ‘at home education. Pretty please’.”

Even NPR admits issues with such lists, this is from August of 2018:

How many times per year does a gun go off in an American school?

We should know. But we don’t.

This spring the U.S. Education Department reported that in the 2015-2016 school year, “nearly 240 schools … reported at least 1 incident involving a school-related shooting.” The number is far higher than most other estimates.

But NPR reached out to every one of those schools repeatedly over the course of three months and found that more than two-thirds of these reported incidents never happened. Child Trends, a nonpartisan nonprofit research organization, assisted NPR in analyzing data from the government’s Civil Rights Data Collection.

We were able to confirm just 11 reported incidents, either directly with schools or through media reports.

In 161 cases, schools or districts attested that no incident took place or couldn’t confirm one. In at least four cases, we found, something did happen, but it didn’t meet the government’s parameters for a shooting. About a quarter of schools didn’t respond to our inquiries.

“When we’re talking about such an important and rare event, [this] amount of data error could be very meaningful,” says Deborah Temkin, a researcher and program director at Child Trends.

NPR goes on to note:

  • This confusion comes at a time when the need for clear data on school violence has never been more pressing.

All lists like the one shared [below] do is add to the confusion. This was my response to a friend sharing the list:

QUOTING MYSELF

Much of this list is not an example of “school shootings” like the one that recently happened. Just to exemplify my broader statement, here is one example pulled from the list to engender emotion rather than reasonable thought on the issue (#200).

Providence Career & Technical Academy

  • William Parsons was shot and killed in this event;
  • He was not a student at Providence Career & Technical Academy, rather, a student at a nearby school, Central High School;
  • He was a bystander to a fight between gang members [also not students at Providence] outside Providence Career & Technical Academy while waiting for his father to pick him up;
  • The school was not targeted, and the violence happened to be near the school.

Much of the list is like this… and has nothing ta do with “mass shootings” like the one that killed those kids and teachers. And as a point in history, the worst school massacre was in 1927 by a school board treasurer in Michigan (Bath School disaster). He killed 38 children. Which falls at #13 in the world’s deadliest.

SIDE NOTE

As an aside: I make it a habit not to post on this person’s Facebook (FB), and this was one of almost zero comments on their FB I have made over time. And my comment was pretty benign (minus facts), which are abrasive to perceived narratives — I get that.  Subsequentially my status was changed so I could not see any posts on their Facebook.

Which reminded me of a recently read article,

  • The digital revolution has shattered that mirror, and now the public inhabits those broken pieces of glass. So the public isn’t one thing; it’s highly fragmented, and it’s basically mutually hostile. It’s mostly people yelling at each other and living in bubbles of one sort or another. (THE ATLANTIC)

It’s the “bubbles” part that interests me.

I simply offered a view unlike any other in the strain; and what did the person do? Shut themselves off to the rare viewpoint that disagreed with the consensus they wish to artificially build around themself.

Another example of regular conversation moving toward censorship of viewpoints that offer even the slightest dissent (in Orwellian fashion) is this: years ago there was a weekly series in the L.A. Times where a column would take an event or position and have a progressive leaning columnist give their thoughts and position; and another column was written by a more conservative columnist giving theirs. I believe it was called, “View from the Left,” and, “View from the Right.”

Often times the writer on the right was Dennis Prager.

The L.A. Times has long nixed thoughtful thinking, comparison, and columns/columnists like this and Dennis.

Another example comes by way of the Executive Editor of the New York Times (the top position in the newsroom), Dean Baquet, who admitted that it is the Left who does not want to hear thoughtful responses to issues from a countering viewpoint.

You see, progressive leaning individuals are far more likely to unfriend or censor opposing political views (see HERE). Here is a snippet of the poll via TOWNHALL shortly after the 2016 election

  • Nearly one-quarter (24%) of Democrats say they blocked, unfriended, or stopped following someone on social media after the election because of their political posts on social media. Fewer than one in ten Republicans (9%) and independents (9%) report eliminating people from their social media circle. Political liberals are also far more likely than conservatives to say they removed someone from their social media circle due to what they shared online (28% vs. 8%, respectively). Eleven percent of moderates say they blocked, unfollowed, or unfriended someone due to what they posted online…Only five percent of Americans say they are planning on spending less time with certain family members because of their political views. Democrats, however, are five times more likely than Republicans to say they are trying to avoid certain family members due to their political views (10% vs. 2%, respectively). The pattern among political independents mirrors the general population.

The least tolerant sub-demographic measured in the poll was Democratic-leaning women…

And this still holds true in large measure. And as you can see from my very reasonable, non-yelling, non-gaslighting comment [in the “Calvin” text box] — this holds true.

BUBBLES

…CONTINUING…

In another 2018 posting, DAILY CALLER catalogs CNN’s use of bad stats as well:

…The list of school shootings used by CNN and other news outlets, however, wildly exaggerates the number by lumping in accidental firearm discharges, domestic disputes, and events that don’t involve students with the active shooter situations that most people don’t lump into the specific category of school shootings.

CNN’s list includes one shooting incident in Alabama where one person was injured at an on-campus apartment building. Another shooting at Savannah State University in Georgia is counted despite the fact that the two people involved were not students.

Many media outlets also pull their numbers from Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit gun control advocacy group, and includes any time “a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds.” Their current count is even higher than CNN’s.

Again, NPR:

  • “When we’re talking about such an important and rare event, [this] amount of data error could be very meaningful,” says Deborah Temkin, a researcher and program director at Child Trends.

PIVOTING A BIT…. REAL WORLD SOLUTIONS

When I found this video I posted it on my Facebook with the following note:

  • Damn. Easy peasy. Should give the teacher extra time to get her or his gun out of the lock box and protect her (or his life) as well as the lives of the kids under her (or his) care.

And that is the key… what will a teacher do, or what length will he or she go in our more secularly violent society to protect his or her own life and thus her children in the classroom? After Sandy Hook some schools offered training and more for teachers that chose to arm themselves.

Some schools in south-central Missouri have created their own measures to stop a mass shooter: arming teachers. The move is not without controversy—but these extremely rural communities say it was their best option for safety.

For many schools, the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, which killed 26 people, was a wake-up call. Aaron Sydow, Superintendent of the K-8 Fairview School District in West Plains, says his community looked to the school board for help.

“When Sandy Hook actually occurred, just after that, we had a lot of public outcry, locally,” Sydow told KSMU. “Parents [asked], ‘How are you going to protect the kids here? We want you to do something.’” 

Fairview board members reached out to a security contractor named Greg Martin. He created a program for school employees, including teachers, to carry concealed firearms in the classroom.

Martin founded Shield Solutions, a firm that trains staff at businesses and schools in firearm skills. Its programs are currently used in more than 35 schools, mostly in south-central Missouri.

Martin says teachers and staff who are recruited for the program go through a series of mental and physical tests before being approved to carry a weapon…..

Here is the training they go through:

….The training consists of 40 hours – five hours of classroom instruction and 35 hours of range time. And the instructors don’t go easy on their pupils either. Although participants may begin their training wet behind the ears, by the end of the course they are required to prove that they can not only handle a gun safely and accurately. Additionally, the training also prepares the class to handle the emotional toil that comes when dealing with a potentially lethal situation. And if they can’t cut it, they’re cut from the program, but the school district has the option of sending another staffer in their stead.

In a recent class there was one elementary school teacher who couldn’t handle the military-style training, complete with running uphill as punishment for making mistakes.

“She’s not going to make it,” said Dan Wehmer, sales manager for Shield Solutions, who was initially told that the idea of armed teachers wouldn’t fly. “She can’t handle the stress. And if she can’t handle it out here, what would she do in a real situation?”

Greg Martin, founder of Shield Solutions and a former Missouri Highway Patrol trooper, believes the physical and emotional strain imposed is a vital part of the training.

They have to know that they won’t crumble under stress and that they can and will pull the trigger during an active shooter scenario to save lives, even if it means that – heaven forbid – the shooter is their own student who has sat in their own classroom.

“It adds to the stress,” Martin said. “But it makes them better. “They can’t fail at this.”

(More at GUNS.COM)

These districts took to heart recommendations made after other school shooting. The Parkland police also failed like the Uvalde school shooting.

So 2 of the 3 deadliest school shootings made it to that gruesome list because of inaction by armed and trained professionals. When my life is about to end by violence, I need to be trained to keep it. And I can rely on myself to do so.

But the Biden Admin doesn’t track with this common sense:

Very…

very…

sad

Politicized School List

  1. Thurston High School.
  2. Columbine High School.
  3. Heritage High School.
  4. Deming Middle School.
  5. Fort Gibson Middle School.
  6. Buell Elementary School.
  7. Lake Worth Middle School.
  8. University of Arkansas.
  9. Junipero Serra High School.
  10. Santana High School.
  11. Bishop Neumann High School.
  12. Pacific Lutheran University.
  13. Granite Hills High School.
  14. Lew Wallace High School.
  15. Martin Luther King, Jr. High School.
  16. Appalachian School of Law.
  17. Washington High School.
  18. Conception Abbey.
  19. Benjamin Tasker Middle School.
  20. University of Arizona.
  21. Lincoln High School.
  22. John McDonogh High School.
  23. Red Lion Area Junior High School.
  24. Case Western Reserve University.
  25. Rocori High School.
  26. Ballou High School.
  27. Randallstown High School.
  28. Bowen High School.
  29. Red Lake Senior High School.
  30. Harlan Community Academy High School.
  31. Campbell County High School.
  32. Milwee Middle School.
  33. Roseburg High School.
  34. Pine Middle School.
  35. Essex Elementary School.
  36. Duquesne University.
  37. Platte Canyon High School.
  38. Weston High School.
  39. West Nickel Mines School.
  40. Joplin Memorial Middle School.
  41. Henry Foss High School.
  42. Compton Centennial High School.
  43. Virginia Tech.
  44. Success Tech Academy.
  45. Miami Carol City Senior High School.
  46. Hamilton High School.
  47. Louisiana Technical College.
  48. Mitchell High School.
  49. O. Green Junior High School.
  50. Northern Illinois University.
  51. Lakota Middle School.
  52. Knoxville Central High School.
  53. Willoughby South High School.
  54. Henry Ford High School.
  55. University of Central Arkansas.
  56. Dillard High School.
  57. Dunbar High School.
  58. Hampton University.
  59. Harvard College.
  60. Larose-Cut Off Middle School.
  61. International Studies Academy.
  62. Skyline College.
  63. Discovery Middle School.
  64. University of Alabama.
  65. DeKalb School.
  66. Deer Creek Middle School.
  67. Ohio State University.
  68. Mumford High School.
  69. University of Texas.
  70. Kelly Elementary School.
  71. Marinette High School.
  72. Aurora Central High School.
  73. Millard South High School.
  74. Martinsville West Middle School.
  75. Worthing High School.
  76. Millard South High School.
  77. Highlands Intermediate School.
  78. Cape Fear High School.
  79. Chardon High School.
  80. Episcopal School of Jacksonville.
  81. Oikos University.
  82. Hamilton High School.
  83. Perry Hall School.
  84. Normal Community High School.
  85. University of South Alabama.
  86. Banner Academy South.
  87. University of Southern California.
  88. Sandy Hook Elementary School.
  89. Apostolic Revival Center Christian School.
  90. Taft Union High School.
  91. Osborn High School.
  92. Stevens Institute of Business and Arts.
  93. Hazard Community and Technical College.
  94. Chicago State University.
  95. Lone Star College-North.
  96. Cesar Chavez High School.
  97. Price Middle School.
  98. University of Central Florida.
  99. New River Community College.
  100. Grambling State University.
  101. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  102. Ossie Ware Mitchell Middle School.
  103. Ronald E. McNair Discovery Academy.
  104. North Panola High School.
  105. Carver High School.
  106. Agape Christian Academy.
  107. Sparks Middle School.
  108. North Carolina A&T State University.
  109. Stephenson High School.
  110. Brashear High School.
  111. West Orange High School.
  112. Arapahoe High School.
  113. Edison High School.
  114. Liberty Technology Magnet High School.
  115. Hillhouse High School.
  116. Berrendo Middle School.
  117. Purdue University.
  118. South Carolina State University.
  119. Los Angeles Valley College.
  120. Charles F. Brush High School.
  121. University of Southern California.
  122. Georgia Regents University.
  123. Academy of Knowledge Preschool.
  124. Benjamin Banneker High School.
  125. H. Conley High School.
  126. East English Village Preparatory Academy.
  127. Paine College.
  128. Georgia Gwinnett College.
  129. John F. Kennedy High School.
  130. Seattle Pacific University.
  131. Reynolds High School.
  132. Indiana State University.
  133. Albemarle High School.
  134. Fern Creek Traditional High School.
  135. Langston Hughes High School.
  136. Marysville Pilchuck High School.
  137. Florida State University.
  138. Miami Carol City High School.
  139. Rogers State University.
  140. Rosemary Anderson High School.
  141. Wisconsin Lutheran High School.
  142. Frederick High School.
  143. Tenaya Middle School.
  144. Bethune-Cookman University.
  145. Pershing Elementary School.
  146. Wayne Community College.
  147. B. Martin Middle School.
  148. Southwestern Classical Academy.
  149. Savannah State University.
  150. Harrisburg High School.
  151. Umpqua Community College.
  152. Northern Arizona University.
  153. Texas Southern University.
  154. Tennessee State University.
  155. Winston-Salem State University.
  156. Mojave High School.
  157. Lawrence Central High School.
  158. Franklin High School.
  159. Muskegon Heights High School.
  160. Independence High School.
  161. Madison High School.
  162. Antigo High School.
  163. University of California-Los Angeles.
  164. Jeremiah Burke High School.
  165. Alpine High School.
  166. Townville Elementary School.
  167. Vigor High School.
  168. Linden McKinley STEM Academy.
  169. June Jordan High School for Equity.
  170. Union Middle School.
  171. Mueller Park Junior High School.
  172. West Liberty-Salem High School.
  173. University of Washington.
  174. King City High School.
  175. North Park Elementary School.
  176. North Lake College.
  177. Freeman High School.
  178. Mattoon High School.
  179. Rancho Tehama Elementary School.
  180. Aztec High School.
  181. Wake Forest University.
  182. Italy High School.
  183. NET Charter High School.
  184. Marshall County High School.
  185. Sal Castro Middle School.
  186. Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
  187. Great Mills High School
  188. Central Michigan University
  189. Huffman High School
  190. Frederick Douglass High School
  191. Forest High School
  192. Highland High School
  193. Dixon High School
  194. Santa Fe High School
  195. Noblesville West Middle School
  196. University of North Carolina Charlotte
  197. STEM School Highlands Ranch
  198. Edgewood High School
  199. Palm Beach Central High School
  200. Providence Career & Technical Academy
  201. Fairley High School (school bus)
  202. Canyon Springs High School
  203. Dennis Intermediate School
  204. Florida International University
  205. Central Elementary School
  206. Cascade Middle School
  207. Davidson High School
  208. Prairie View A & M University
  209. Altascocita High School
  210. Central Academy of Excellence
  211. Cleveland High School
  212. Robert E. Lee High School
  213. Cheyenne South High School
  214. Grambling State University
  215. Blountsville Elementary School
  216. Holmes County, Mississippi (school bus)
  217. Prescott High School
  218. College of the Mainland
  219. Wynbrooke Elementary School
  220. UNC Charlotte
  221. Riverview Florida (school bus)
  222. Second Chance High School
  223. Carman-Ainsworth High School
  224. Williwaw Elementary School
  225. Monroe Clark Middle School
  226. Central Catholic High School
  227. Jeanette High School
  228. Eastern Hills High School
  229. DeAnza High School
  230. Ridgway High School
  231. Reginald F. Lewis High School
  232. Saugus High School
  233. Pleasantville High School
  234. Waukesha South High School
  235. Oshkosh High School
  236. Catholic Academy of New Haven
  237. Bellaire High School
  238. North Crowley High School
  239. McAuliffe Elementary School
  240. South Oak Cliff High School
  241. Texas A&M University-Commerce
  242. Sonora High School
  243. Western Illinois University
  244. Oxford High School
  245. Robb Elementary School

Make Orwell Fiction Again (Dems Slide Leftward | Repubs, Not-So-Much)

Published by Papa Giorgio

This is an extension of a series I started, the first installment being: “Make Orwell Fiction Again (Hunter Biden Edition)” — I was going to include this, but chose to put it here to keep the other post more on it’s “censorship” topic.

Only a society that can effectively block and censor news, and shut down free expression is the kind the sticker refers to. Non-conservative ideas and news stories can be found readily in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, ABC, NPR, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, etc.

In fact, almost every newspaper WITH THE EXCEPTION of the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, and the New York Post, and at times FOX NEWS, have a more conservative leaning bias and news stories to be considered.

L.A. TIMES EXAMPLE

One example is that years ago the L.A. Times carried columns by Dennis Prager (and other conservative voices). Today they carry zero. Here is a good letter to the editor:

To the editor (OCT. 3, 2020): I had to laugh when I read the statement that the L.A. Times’ future depends on diversity in its staff and stories. (“The Times’ reckoning on race and our commitment to meaningful change,” Sept. 27)

The Times’ future — and that of its cohorts in the widely distrusted and reviled “mainstream media” — does indeed depend on diversity. But not the diversity The Times is talking about, a surface diversity of skin color, national origin and sexual orientation.

No, The Times’ future depends on ideological diversity, something it lacks entirely.

The Los Angeles Times of 2020 is a daily Democratic Party mailer, and a particularly vituperative one. More and more of the paper is devoted to opinion, and ostensible news stories themselves resemble op-ed articles. All of it, of course, leans in the same far-left direction.

This does special disservice to the largely left-leaning readership of The Times, who still, four years after Donald Trump’s election, have no idea why much of the country holds them in contempt.

The Times should in fact commit itself to diversity — of thought. For every left-leaning columnist who appears in its pages, The Times should commit to hiring one conservative — and not never-Trump conservatives like Jonah Goldberg, but fierce, proudly pro-Trump conservatives who can expose your readers to facts and arguments they otherwise never have to confront.

Sure, some of these readers would threaten to cancel their subscriptions, and a few may. But The Times would become a must-read instead of the partisan rag it is today.

Jordan Chodorow, Los Angeles

NEW YORK TIMES EXAMPLE

Here for instance is Larry Elder noting Dean Baquet’s, executive editor of the New York Times, admission to the Left not wanting to hear thoughtful disagreement:

Dennis hasn’t changed (I know, I have listed to him for 2-decades), the Democrats and the Left in general have moved leftward.

PEW DATA

The Pew data, however, make it clear that the shift toward the extreme has happened among Democrats, not Republicans.

A new study from the Pew Research Center shows a growing partisan gap in opinions on major issues, driven in part by Democrats’ leftward drift.

Pew found Democrats have moved substantially left on a variety of issues while Republicans’ views remain relatively constant. That was true across social and economic issues; Pew claimed that the split between Republicans and Democrats is more pronounced than any divides by race, gender, or socioeconomic status.

“This poll and some other recent ones show that Democrats are pulling more strongly to the left and Republicans are not pulling quite as strongly to the right as a general matter,” said Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who specializes in American public opinion.

[….]

“The party is being pulled in a more liberal direction, there’s no question about that,” Bowman said. “I mean Elizabeth Warren’s comment a few weeks ago essentially that this isn’t Bill Clinton’s party, we’re not the party of welfare and crime. I think she’s reflecting the views of many of the people in her party. And I think a lot of it happened during the Obama years.”

(FREE BEACON)

BERNIE SAYS THEY WILL PUSH OL’ JOE

…Now, while Joe Biden is the new president, it’s Bernie Sanders and his allies who will often be in the driver’s seat making policy. “We’re going to push Joe — the president — as far as we can,” Sanders told CNN.

Wherever that ends up being, it will move this country further to the left than most people thought possible a year ago. Bernie Sanders is proof that if you’re persistent enough, you don’t have to be elected president to be in a position to accomplish your goals.

(NATIONAL REVIEW)

DECADES OLD NON-PARTISEN TRACKER

Senator Kamala Harris is the most left wing Senator — even more Left” than Bernie:

In 2018, Harris was ranked the fourth-most left-wing. But by 2019 — a year she spent running for president — Harris had moved to the furthest extreme.

She was an early co-sponsor of the Senate version of the “Green New Deal” of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), as well as the “Medicare for All” bill introduced by Sanders, which would have eliminated all private health insurance.

Harris also supported granting free health care to illegal aliens, slashing military budgets, and other radical proposals.

GovTrack explained its ratings: “Our unique ideology analysis assigns a score to Members of Congress according to their legislative behavior by how similar the pattern of bills and resolutions they cosponsor are to other Members of Congress. The score can be interpreted as a conservative—liberal scale, although of course it only takes into account a small aspect of reality.” The most conservative score is 1.00; the most liberal score possible is 0.00.

Harris ranked #100 — the “least conservative,” or most liberal, Senator on the list, and the only one to score a “0.00”:

#90 0.16 Sen. Chris Van Hollen [D-MD]
#91 0.15 Sen. Richard Durbin [D-IL]
#92 0.14 Sen. Amy Klobuchar [D-MN]
#93 0.12 Sen. Richard Blumenthal [D-CT]
#94 0.10 Sen. Edward “Ed” Markey [D-MA]
#95 0.09 Sen. Mazie Hirono [D-HI]
#96 0.07 Sen. Cory Booker [D-NJ]
#97 0.07 Sen. Jeff Merkley [D-OR]
#98 0.03 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand [D-NY]
#99 0.02 Sen. Bernard “Bernie” Sanders [I-VT]
#100 0.00 Sen. Kamala Harris [D-CA]

The New York Times called Harris a “pragmatic moderate” in its coverage of Harris’s announcement as Joe Biden’s running mate. [RPT editorial: LOL!]

(BREITBART)

AXIOS’ JONATHAN SWAN OPINES

Axios’ Jonathan Swan reports on the increasing leftward shift of Democrats, calling it “striking,” while noting that many formerly liberal fringe ideas are now mainstream in the Democrat Party. Be sure to like, subscribe, and comment below to share your thoughts on the video.

Here is more via AXIOS:

What’s happening: You see it in many of the major domestic debates of our times.

Show less
  • Support for a big government “Green New Deal” to fight climate change. Watch the 2020 candidates jump on this bandwagon. 
  • Support for Medicare for All, calling for a much bigger government role in health care, beyond the Affordable Care Act.
  • A rush away from tough-on-security as crucial to immigration reform, which until recently was seen by most Democrats as essential to not looking soft on crime or terrorism.

In all three cases, these topics are shaping up as the new litmus tests for liberal activists heading into 2020.

  • Why it matters: These ideas and their champions are coming to the fore at a moment when there are real opportunities to begin to realize them.

You can see this shift in one important number: the number of Democrats proudly calling themselves liberal.

  • Gallup said yesterday that 51% of Democrats self-describe as liberal, a new high “following gradual increases since the 1990s.”
  • In 1992, when Clinton first won, 25% self-identified as liberal, 25% as conservative and the rest as moderate.
  • And across the spectrum, the country’s traditional lean in favor of conservatives has narrowed: 35% of Americans told Gallup they’re conservative, 35% moderate and 26% liberal………

NYT’s Executive Editor Admits Left Doesn’t Want Thoughtful Discussion

Published by Papa Giorgio

Larry Elder notes Dean Baquet’s, executive editor of the New York Times (the top position in the newsroom), admission to the Left not wanting to hear thoughtful responses to issues from a counter viewpoint. Here is NEWSBUSTERS comments on the issue:

Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller harped on something New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said Wednesday at the Recode conference in California. In discussing the Times editorial pages — and the liberal reader anger over signing up right-leaning columnist Bret Stephens from The Wall Street Journal — he used the royal “We” in describing the Left, until he caught himself, and “I’m not ‘we,’ I’m a journalist.”

Recode’s Peter Kafka brought up a New York magazine article by Rebecca Traister reporting Hillary Clinton being angry about the Stephens hire: “Why… would… you… do… that?…66 million people voted for me, plus, you know, the crazy third-party people. So there’s a lot of people who would actually appreciate stronger arguments on behalf of the most existential challenges facing our country and the world, climate change being one of them!”

Baquet insisted Stephens is not a “climate denier,” but that he thinks climate activists have turned their crusade into a “religion that brooks no disagreement.” Baquet liked having a “thoughtful voice” like this in the paper. Kafka shot back “One of the arguments that people have is, look, there’s plenty of places to find news from ‘climate skeptics,’ if you want to call them that,” and if the Times wanted to stand for something, they should “embrace the left side” of the spectrum. Baquet insisted the editorial pages were meant to have more than one side.

Here is the link to the other articles referenced in the above audio:

➤ THE CIVIL HERETIC
➤ CLIMATE OF COMPLETE CERTAINTY